Edgar Purnell Hooley

Edgar Purnell Hooley (1860-1942) M.Inst.C.E., F.S.I., M.Inst.M. & Cy.E., originator of Tarmac

1860 Born in Swansea

1876 Articled to James Craik, Bristol.

Surveyor to Maidstone R.D.C.

By 1891 was County Surveyor of Nottinghamshire

1901 On a road near Denby ironworks in Derbyshire, Edgar Purnell Hooley noticed a barrel of tar had fallen from a dray and burst open. To avoid a nuisance, someone from the ironworks had thoughtfully covered the sticky black mess with waste slag from nearby furnaces. Hooley noticed that the patch of road, which had been unintentionally re-surfaced, was dust-free and had not been rutted by traffic.

1902 He set to work and obtained a British patent for an improved method of coating broken slag, macadam or similar materials with tar making it suitable for road making, foundations, etc. The material was known as Tarmac.

1903 By June, Hooley had formed the Tar Macadam (Purnell Hooley's Patent) Syndicate Limited, the origin of what is now known as The Tarmac Group, which became the UK's leading supplier of building materials.

1911 County surveyor living in Notts.

County Engineer (Roads), Kesteven, Lincolnshire

President of the Institution of Municipal and County Engineers.

WWI Rejoined the 28th Sherwood Foresters as Captain, and later transferred to Territorial Force Reserve.

1917-18 Acting County Surveyor, Oxfordshire, and Consulting County Surveyor, Bucks.

Surveyor to Stow-on-the-Wold Highway Board

1922 Road Engineer, Fosseside, Stow-on-the-Wold, Glos. Chief Works: Maintenance of highways and bridge-building.

1928 Patent on "Improvements relating to detachable clips or fasteners for papers or the like"

1942 Died in Oxford

---

• N.B. The term "macadam" refers to a process of surfacing roads and other areas using small broken stones, typically in two layers, based on the ideas of John Loudon Macadam and Richard Lovell Edgeworth.

See Also

Loading...